Joe Clifford Books In Order

Publication Order of Jay Porter Books

Publication Order of Standalone Novels

Publication Order of Collections

Publication Order of Anthologies

Author Joe Clifford was born in Lamentation Mountain, Connecticut. He spent the nineties on the streets of San Francisco as a homeless heroin addict, and would later turn his life around. He got his MFA from Florida International University in the year 2008, before he went back to the Bay Area.

Joe is the producer of Lip Service West, a reading “raw, gritty, real” series in Oakland, California, and works as acquisitions editor for Gutter Books. He has also edited two anthology books, one inspired by the music of Bruce Springsteen, while the other is inspired by Johnny Cash’s music.

In the year 2015, “Lamentation” was nominated for Best Mystery Novel by the Anthony Awards.

He writes the “Jay Porter” series and stand alone novels. His debut novel, “Junkie Love” was released in the year 2013. Joe’s work is from the memoir and crime genres.

“Lamentation” is the first novel in the “Jay Porter” series, which was released in the year 2014. Jay Porter, during a frigid winter in New Hampshire, is attempting to make a living and keep some kind of relationship going with his ex and their two year old son. He gets an urgent call that Chris, his drug addict brother, is getting questioned by the sheriff about his junkie business partner gone missing, and Jay feels obliged to come to the rescue.

Jay is able to get his brother released from the county jail and Chris goes missing into the night. While Jay starts to look for him, he gets pulled into a cauldron of old secrets and ugly lies that may tear his tiny hometown apart and threaten the Jay’s life as well as everyone’s that he holds dear. Some powerful forces come into play that are willing to stop at nothing until Chris is finally dead and the info he has is destroyed.

This is a compelling read with a fantastic protagonist, and is more nuanced than a typical by-the-numbers detective tale. Jay is a highly sympathetic and self-aware character and is one readers are sure to root for the entire way through. He and his brother have their own demons, and their relationship is not all that perfect, yet they have a lot of love for each other. It has a true to life ending and is not one to be overlooked.

“December Boys” is the second novel in the “Jay Porter” series, which was released in the year 2016. Jay Porter, who is NorthEastern Insurance in New Hampshire’s newest employee, is investigating an accident claim. That is when he finds out the teen behind the wheel got arrested for minor drug possession and then sentenced to a rather hardcore behavioral modification center.

Jay meets Nicki, a college intern, at the county courthouse, who tips him off to a potential scandal. First time juvenile offenders getting shipped off to private institutions for political kickbacks. He finds out that Adam and Michael Lombardi, long-time family nemeses, could have a stake in this scheme.

Could Jay’s mission to help out these kids be a legitimate crusade? Or could his thirst to get revenge be driven by the guilt that he feels over his junkie brother’s death? These are questions that conspire to rip apart the peace and drive a wedge between Jay and Jenny, his wife. With the aid of Nicki, his new friend, and some old friends, Jay finds that he is thrown back into a past he was hoping to leave far behind. It puts everything, as well as everybody he loves, at risk while he pursues the truth.

“Give Up the Dead” is the third novel in the “Jay Porter” series, which was released in the year 2017. Three years have gone by since Jay Porter, estate clearing handyman came close to losing his life after a devastating accident on the thin ice on Echo Lake. His work uncovering a kids-for-cash scandal might have made Ashton, New Hampshire safer, but nothing is ever without a price. The uncredited, traumatic events cost Jay his son and his wife, and now he has a permanent leg injury.

Jay is repairing his life when a mysterious stranger comes to him with an offer that is too good to be true. A big bundle of cash in exchange for locating a missing teen boy who could have been abducted by a radical recovery group out in the northern New Hampshire wilds. Skeptical of gift horses and uninterested in reenlisting in the local war on drugs and so he passes on the offer. The very next day, his boss is discovered beaten and left for dead, with Jay being painted as the main suspect.

While clues start to tie each of the cases together, Jay finds that he is back on the job and right back in the line of fire.

“Broken Ground” is the fourth novel in the “Jay Porter” series, which was released in the year 2018. While at an AA meeting, Jay meets a recovering addict in need of help. During another grueling northern New Hampshire winter, Amy Lupus’s little sister, Emily, has disappeared from the Coos County Center, which is the newly opened rehab opened by Adam and Michael Lombardi, Jay’s nemeses.

Jay starts looking into Emily’s disappearance, and finds that everybody that knew Emily swear she has never used drugs. She is a straight shooter and is interning at a newspaper that is investigating the Center and the horrible secret hidden either in it or beneath it.

Jay finds out about a supposed missing hard drive, he is thrown back five years when his brother Chris, discovered a hard drive that belonged to Lombardi Construction. For quite a while, Jay only assumed the much-sought-after hard drive had incriminating pictures of Adam and Michael’s dad, and this contributed to Chris’ death.

Now he thinks the hard drive holds a secret much more sinister, and the missing Lupus sister might have unknowingly found. The more Jay digs in, the more poisoned the ground becomes, and his two cases wind up becoming only one. It yields a toxic truth with some local fallout, as well as far-reaching ramifications.